Trajectories
by Manuuk7
Summary: A short story playing with events and their perception. Touches on relationships but not a central theme.
1. Chapter 1

_This is a three-chapter short story (almost complete already) that insisted to be written. But I plan to get back to finishing The Forest._

xxx

 ** _N ew York City Police Department - December 10_**

Police officer: "Please state your name and address for the record."

ZefledOnne: "My name is ZefledOnne Williams, I live at 345 Ketass Street in Kensington Heights, Brooklyn."

Officer: "Can you go over the events of December 7."

ZefledOnne: "December 7?"

Second police officer, sighing: "The reason why you're here."

ZefledOnne: "You mean, the Vulcan?"

Police officer 1: "Yes, the Vulcan."

ZefledOnne: "Well, I told you already. Me and my posse, we walking down the street, looking for some excitement. You know. Someone nice to talk to or to spend the night with. So JoovahnTwo, he sees this chick walking on the other side of the street. So we figure we're gonna cross over, go talk to her, friendly-like, you see what I mean?"

Police officer 2: "Yeah. Yeah, we see."

Scraping of chair. ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. And then ThreeOhJackson, he says "that's a Vulcan". And JoovahnTwo, he says "A Vulcan?", so we gonna to see."

Police officer 1: "So that's why you crossed the street?"

ZefledOnne: "Well we wanna see a Vulcan up close. Never seen one of them people. Be'er than some washed out pro who gives more lip than you want. And she was a looker too. But it wasn't like that."

Police officer 1: "What do you mean 'it wasn't like that'? It wasn't like what?"

ZefledOnne: "The woman part."

Police officer 1: "So what were you planning to do? Say hi and go on your way?"

ZefledOnne: "I dunno, man. We just lookin' to have some fun. Play with her, make her scared or some shit like that. Like we laugh about how scared she is later."

Police officer 2: "So you crossed the street."

Police officer 1: "Because she's a Vulcan. Then what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "Well we cross over and she just walks on. Like she ain't scared. So JoovahnTwo and ThreeOhJackson, they block her way, make her pay attention, show some respect."

Police officer 2: "And what do you do?"

ZefledOnne: "I ain't blocking nobody. I just standing there in the street."

Police officer 1: "You're standing in the street so she cant' step off the curb."

Silence.

Police officer 1: "Speak louder, I can't hear you."

ZefledOnne: "She could'a turn back."

Police officer 1: "Because there's nobody behind her? Of course there 's someone. Who's behind her?"

ZefledOnne: "SpoofyBoyOne. But I swear we ain't gonna hurt her."

Police officer 1, sarcastically: "You're just four guys surrounding a woman, nobody's gonna get hurt, right?"

Police officer 2: "So what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "She keeps walkin' like she ain' scared but we're in the way and then she says 'Please let me through.' That's when ThreeOhJackson, he ask 'You a Vulcan?' And she go 'Yes, am a Vulcan.' And then SpoofyBoyOne, he been hitting the bottle, he just gets up in her face and starts screaming 'You aliens killed my uncle in Florida! He was my uncle!' And she look at him, real calm, and she say 'These were Xindi, not Vulcans.' And SpoofyBoyOne, he goes 'Well, an alien's good as another, so long as they dead.' And he punches her real hard. Then she folds and I think she gonna fall for sure, but the next thing she grabs his leg and he on the ground. Then things go nuts."

Police officer 1: "Nuts how?"

ZefledOnne: "Like she attacks us."

Police office 1: "She attacks you?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. We just defendin' ourselves."

Police officer 2: "Against a woman half your size?"

ZefledOnne: "I know, that crazy, right? But you should'a seen it, man. We try'n keep her from hittin' us but we can't lay a punch on her."

Police officer 1: "You can't lay a punch on her? I though you were defending yourselves?"

ZefledOnne: "We was! Takes all of us. But then ThreeOhJackson he grab her and JoovahnTwo he hit her in the face."

Police officer 2: "Is that how she got hurt?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. Her face is all green and bloody. A freakin' nightmare."

Police officer 2: "Then what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "She put a knee and I think she down. But then she grab JoovahnTwo's foot and he start hollerin' like a baby."

Police officer 2: "And then what?"

ZefledOnne: "Nothing! This dude comes from across the street. So we split. "

Police officer 1: "You split? Just like that?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man, we jus' leave. Two'f us have to help JoovahnTwo. He hurtin'. He holdin' his ankle and cussin' her out."

Police officer 2: "Well, that cor-ro-bo-rates what your friends told us."

Police officer 1: "Hear that ZefledOnne? It means it's the same thing."

ZefledOnne: "See, I ain't lying. Can I go now?"

Police officer 1: "Well, you're not going anyplace for a while there, buddy. Hate crime and stuff."

ZefledOnne: "Crime?! Ah didn't kill nobody! And she only an alien."

Police officer 1: "Yeah, that's what hate crime means. Your bad luck is she's one of those aliens who helped save Earth from the Xindi."

ZefledOnne: "Hey, I dunno that! Nobody did. We never see them dudes down by where I live."

Police officer 1: "Well, sorry, wrong time, wrong place, wrong victim."

ZefledOnne: "Come'n, man! Can we make a deal? I want a lawyer."

Polifce officer 2: "You already talked, Zefled. What d'you think a lawyer's gonna do for you?"

ZefledOnne: "I dunno. Make a deal?"

Police officer 1: "For that, you'd have to have something we want. And you don't."

xxx

 ** _Three days before. December 7._**

Peter Kristoffson closed the office door behind him, stepped into the cold wind of December, briefly checked the time. Close to 2 am. Another long night in the office, too long by half, unless one counted the hours he had spent out at dinner with his friends before he came back to finish his work and look to his bosses like he had been up all night. Still, these days were too long, nobody should have to work that hard.

He could have taken a hovercar but decided to hoof it, the night was clear and it would be a welcome break from all those hours looking at a computer screen. He took his usual shortcuts towards his apartment, enjoying the sounds of his steps echoing through the empty streets.

The commotion on the other side of the street slowed him down somewhat, but he brushed it off as a drunken brawl. Still, as he got closer, the brawl looked somewhat one-sided. Pretty quickly, he figured that several large guys were attacking a single smaller one. It was only as he came near that he did a double-take. It was not a smaller man but a woman.

One of the men hollered. Peter was crossing the street at a diagonal before he even fully thought of it, calling on the fighters to stop what they were doing. The men started running down the street, the last one hobbling between two of them.

A lone figure remained on the sidewalk. Peter saw that it was the woman. He walked over to check on her. She had some paint on her face. "Are you okay?" As he asked, he realized it was blood tricking down her face, saw the ears, she was a Vulcan.

Peter had learned in school that one didn't touch Vulcans. In cany case he had a hunch that getting too close right then might endanger his physical integrity. He stopped where he was, close enough, but careful not to make a movement towards her. "Are you all right?" She looked at him as if she didn't see him. She blinked once, then said something in Vulcan. He looked at her in confusion, unsure what to do next.

"Are you all right?" He asked again. A cold burst of wind swept by them and she winced as if she had been struck. He noticed she was shivering. He also saw that her top was torn off on the side, from top to bottom. Without thinking, he took his coat off and put it around her shoulders, somehow managing to avoid contact.

She blinked again, nodded once. "Thank you." Perhaps she stopped shivering or he could no longer see it under the coat.

"I called 911." He said. He got the feeling perhaps he shouldn't have, that somehow she would have preferred he didn't. He felt vaguely guilty but he wasn't sure why.

His thoughts were interrupted by a police cruiser gliding to a stop next to them. Two officers came out, stopped short when they took in the scene of him next to a bleeding Vulcan. Another police glider slid in behind them and another two officers came out. Peter realized things might look like he was at fault, he quickly raised his hands. "Hey, I had nothing to do with it!"

The first officers converged on the Vulcan while the other ones took him aside, asking him questions about what happened. He saw one of the officers escort the woman to the waiting cruiser. She was limping.

"Hey, it's my coat!" He told the policeman who had been talking to him. The man looked behind at the woman gingerly getting in the police car. "Don't worry, we have your name and address, the coat will be returned to you."

Another brisk burst of wind accompanied his words. Peter stood there, in the cold, thinking that good deeds never went unpunished, ruing the overcoat he had just plunked a week's wages on.

xxx

 ** _T'Pol - December 7_**

The meeting had gone on a lot longer than planned and the city streets were mostly deserted, only a few shadows moving around. Most were long in bed or in their shelter. She tucked her neck lower inside the formal robe, the weather was above freezing for Humans and well below any acceptable average for Vulcans.

T'Pol turned the corner, she had mentally mapped the most efficient way to the shuttleport. She would get there just in time for the last daily shuttle to the Mississippi belt where Trip was visiting his parents. The temperature there would at least be acceptable and the ambient humidity within the Vulcan parameters.

Their first travel to that part of Earth to visit Trip's family had been in summer, when she had found the level-setting of the home conditioners unpleasantly cold and the pleasant outside high-summer temperatures came with a level of humidity that was unhealthy for a Vulcan. Since then Trip had been told that her visits to his family would only take place during the winter months, he was otherwise free to go spend time with them as often as he wished. Not that the opportunities abounded, they seldom found their way back to Earth or to Vulcan. She would get to the shuttleport in three minutes and forty-two seconds. There was no need to hurry her pace.

She saw the group of men across the street, shadows in the shadows of the night, she judged from their height and heft that these were men. It would take twenty seconds to walk past them, there was no need to adjust her projected route to avoid them.

She did register a modicum of surprise when they crossed the street to her side, loosened her limbs under her robe. Aliens were unpredictable.

Quickly they were in her way, blocking the sidewalk from all sides, one creeping behind her. From the voices, she judged them to be young males, by far the most dangerous age cohort among Humans. She shifted her weight slightly as she came to a resting stop in front of them, ready to call at a moment's notice on suus mahna defensive moves. She couldn't see their features very clearly in the dim light of the street lamps. They could have a rational reason to be barring her way and she politely asked them to give her passage.

The man ahead to her left spoke first, asking her if she was a Vulcan. When she affirmed she was, the man behind her became agitated. She turned to him to explain the Xindi had destroyed the Floridian peninsula, with the inference that she being a Vulcan was not a Xindi and that therefore she was not one of the ones who assaulted their planet. She had not expected the ensuing blow, low and to the left, that left her short of breath and doubled over. She almost fell but she quickly surmised that falling would make her vulnerable and that the people around her would not hold their blows for vulnerability. Instead, she grabbed the man's leg in an Ahn-Swarn-Marek move and flipped him to the ground.

There was a moment of surprise as the men saw their companion hit the ground. Unfortunately, her fighting back had enraged them and they converged on her. She left the empty robe in the hands of the second man, deftly rolled down and away while kicking the third one back. They all made to grab her and she pushed them back in a flurry of chops and kicks. The one she had thrown first had crept back behind her. Her thermal suit ripped as she escaped his hold. The next man got a hold of her arm and for a few seconds she was kept immobile. Long enough for the first man to strike her hard across the face. The blow landed right on her eye and a field of stars invaded her vision. She went down hard on one knee. They let go of her in reaction to the downward motion and she grabbed the ankle of the one who struck her, lifting and twisting hard.

He howled as the ligaments in his ankle strained at an unnatural angle. In the next moments of confusion she got back to her feet, breathing hard. Suddenly there was a call from across the street. "Hey, wha'ts going on?" The men looked up, realized they were no longer alone, and fled, helping the one still bent over his ankle.

The other man approached from across the street, she could only guess at his shape, dots of lights were obscuring her vision. He said something incomprehensible. "Stay where you are." She warned him. She raised a palm outward to let him know not to come to near, especially not to touch her, aware she was that the Vulcan adrenaline coursing through her body would lead her to attack if he did.

Somehow, either because he knew about Vulcans or because the sight of green blood shocked him, the man kept his distance. "Are you all right?" He asked.

"I will be fine." She carefully allowed for the fact this Human many not be with the other men. A gust of wind blew past them and she shivered, the rip in her thermal suit had destroyed its temperature controls. All of a sudden the man took off his overcoat, put it on her shoulders. "Here this will keep you warm." She would have protested but the comfort of the harsh wind being cut off from her skin silenced her.

"Thank you."

"I called the police." She looked up sharply at him, even though she could hardly see him. Her preference would have been not to. She quickly calculated how much time the fight had lasted, she could still have been at the shuttleport in time. The intervention of the police would delay her arrival at Trip's parents'. Any thoughts of requesting a corrective call were shuttered by the police cruiser who pulled alongside the curb. Two patrolmen pulled out of the vehicle, coming over to her.

"What happened?" That was addressed to the man standing next to her, the tone suspicious.

"I have no idea." The man replied. "I was going home when I saw people fighting in the street."

"M'am?" The other patrolman asked her.

"Four men tried to block my way. They became violent when I told them I was a Vulcan."

"I'm sorry about that, m'am. We need to take you to the emergency room." The second patrolmen opened the back door of the cruiser. T'Pol knew once she stepped inside and they ran her ID chip through the system, alert messages would automatically go out to Enterprise in orbit around Earth and to the Vulcan embassy. There would be investigations, depositions and reports. She would miss the flight. She would have to alert Trip as soon as she her vision fully came back.

T'Pol walked towards the cruiser, limping from the pain in her side. She gingerly lowered herself into the backseat. She suddenly looked at the coatless man on the street, made a move to get out again. "The coat..."

"Not to worry," the policeman stopped her. "We'll take his information and you can send it to him."

The patrolman closed the door, walked over to the other side and sat in the back with her. The Vulcan synaptic system screamed to her that they planned to kill her, drive to a deserted place and dispose of her body. It took all her rational mind to prevent her from attacking the policeman.

The sound of the doors locking almost overwhelmed her synaptic framework. She saw the policeman lean towards her, a chloroform-soaked handkerchief in his hand. Before she could snap his neck, her rational mind adjusted that he was handing her a tissue. "Here, m'am. You're bleeding." He motioned to his mouth with his hand. She dabbed the handkerchief on her lips, looked down at the green smudges on the white fabric. She hadn't realized she was bleeding. She looked over at the man again. Her synaptic system had already laid out how she would disable him with a blow to the jugular, pull his weapon and shoot the control panel, open the door and jump through traffic to safety. The stress of trying to maintain control gave her a splitting headache.

She handed her IDchip to the other policeman and he ran it through Central Computer. Almost immediately two discrete alerts went out, one to the Vulcan embassy and the other to the Enterprise emergency intervention list. The policeman in the front seat turned to her. "My apologies for what happened, Mrs. Tucker. We're taking you to the Interspecies Emergency Room right now." He turned on the siren, swiftly making an about-turn in the street.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Archer - December 8, 12:08 am_**

Jonathan Archer grabbed Erika's hand and brought her to her feet for a passionate kiss. They had spent a night at the opera, not his first choice, or second, or third, but getting the tickets had been a minor win and bringing Erika to the raved performance a major one. How many ways was there to show he cared about her when he was busy for months at a time exploring the immensity of space? A night at the opera, a charmed dessert with champagne, and now the beginning of a night of lovemaking and naked sleeping.

She stripped the clothes off him with the same ravenous hunger she had shown for dessert and within minutes they were on the queen-sized bed. He laid on top of her, his erection firm between them. Soon, he was inside her, fighting the urge to go fast and hard after so many months in space, but instead forcing himself into a slow rhythm, long strokes that let him savor every inch of her.

In the deserted living room, under their shirts and other varied apparel, his communicator vibrated. The emergency routine dictated that the commanding officer be contacted first. When no response came, the communicator increased the tempo and strength of its call, unaware it was being drowned out by the noises coming from the other room. After the third try, the communicator silently flashed the blinking orange of a serious alert.

The emergency routine went to the next contact on the list, stopping for a second on the second officer as an algorithm returned that the subject of an alert could not be contacted about the alert. The third officer was likewise eliminated because of its relationship status with the subject of the alert. The routine went to to the fourth-ranking officer on active duty.

xxx

 ** _Agent Ta'Raik - December 8, 12:09 am_**

Sublieutenant Ta'raik heard the double-chime indicative of a security alert. She got up from her meditation pad and carefully read the message, noting the time, sender, and subject matter. She logged onto the departmental mission database and entered the information, initiating program Phelt1404.

It would alert her superiors to her mission, log the details of yet another alien bashing. Vulcan was keenly tracking statistics since the ugliness following the Xindi attack. This would be the four thousand and thirty-eighth such event. Vulcan always prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, using her reports as the backbone of the procedure.

She went back to her meditation pad. Phelt1404 would comb through the intercity databases until it found the hospital treating the victim. She needed to be fully alert when it did.

xxx

 ** _Phlox - December 8, 12:10 am_**

The clattering of the communicator against the hard countertop cut through his concentration. Phlox looked up from the medical journal he was reading and quickly got out of bed before the noise woke up Elizabeth. He had forgotten to take the communicator with him, he rarely used it anyway.

He fumbled with it, managed to open the channel before the thing got too loud. Elizabeth was gently snoring in their bed. She still refused to become his fourth wife but he was confident that given enough time she would see the benefit of a multi-marriage community.

The message of that popped on the screen took away any further thought of conjugal bliss. He dressed up in a hurry, even though he had no idea where they had taken her. He would wait by the transporter pod until he got the information.

xxx

 ** _T'Pol - December 8, 2:24 am_**

She couldn't bring the synaptic storm under control, not without meditating. An inconvenient side effect of the damage to her neural pathways. To meditate, she needed a quiet room and a candle. Instead, she was on a biobed in the alien section of the city's largest hospital, where the police cruiser had dropped her off.

She had expected to convince the medical staff she could go as soon as they treated her superficial wounds but that hope had been dashed when she found herself unable to take a step forward after getting out of the police cruiser. Before she had a chance to control the pain, a robot-controlled segchair had appeared and she was whisked into the alien section of the emergency room.

It was meant to make aliens more comfortable than the medical emergency environment Humans took for granted. And it was not very successful at it. The room was still uncomfortably cold and noisy, the light too low for her eyes, the sounds painfully harsh to her ears.

At least they knew enough to give her a private room and leave her by herself. Her synaptic system was raging on, every beep goading her to get up, tear the wires off and walk out before they could kill her. Her muscles twitched with the excess stress hormone, her rational mind struggling to stay still while her limbic mind screamed danger. She needed novopraline.

"I am with the Interspecies Medical Exchange and this gives me the right to practice in all alien emergency rooms!" The exclamation reached her through closed doors. T'Pol's logical mind noted that she was experiencing auditory hallucinations. Those were not a common occurrence during a synaptic storm. She would talk to Dr. Phlox about it.

Unfortunately, the crisis was acute enough that the hallucinations were visual as well. She stared at the apparition at the door, part of her mind howling that he had come to kill her. Her jaw clenched with the tension.

Phlox was looking at the monitors above the bed. "Her _isortimol_ levels are dangerously elevated! Where's the Vulcan healer?!" He turned to his back, talked to someone in the corridor.

T'Pol carefully weighed the possibility he might be real, in spite of the synaptic warnings that his reference to a Vulcan healer confirmed he was an apparition. He suddenly disappeared from her sight and her synaptic mind ranted it was right, he had been an apparition. A nip at her neck almost launched her out of the biobed to attack but the restraints kept her in place.

"There, there." Phlox patted her shoulder. "I gave you a shot of novopraline." Her synaptic mind raved that he was reading her thoughts. Helped by he novopraline, her logical mind concluded that the doctor had moved to the side where her eye was swollen shut, that he had followed customary treatment for tension headaches.

She turned her head slightly to check and he was still there. Phlox smiled. "Glad you're back with us. The healer is on his way." He frowned as he looked over her black eye. "You know, I have an Illurian octopus who could take the swelling out in a couple of days. If you want I can bring it down."

"I think not." T'Pol closed her eyes, bringing her head back to center. The tension headache was mercifully receding.

Phlox inclined his head to the right and to the left. He could understand she was not in the right frame of mind. He would ask again when they were back on Enterprise.

xxx

 ** _Phlox_** ** _\- December 8, 3:12 am_**

The healer had arrived right on his heels and the two of them had briefly discussed the patient's injuries, none life-threatening. The split orbital ridge had been sewn up, the bruised kidney had stopped leaking blood, it would take a few days for things to heal, but heal they would.

The healer walked to the head of the biobed and started guiding her into a medical trance. Phlox surveyed the progress on the monitor screens, able to tell that the synaptic system was slowly brought back under control as the isortimol benchmark inched its way down, a millimeter at a time.

A discrete throat-clearing sound made him turn around. A young Vulcan female was standing inside the open-door room. She reminded him somewhat of T'Pol the first time he had seen her. Phlox saw the insignia of the Vulcan security corps.

"Yes?" he inquired.

"I am Agent Ta'raik." The female responded. "As part of my investigation, I need to interview the victim directly."

"T'Pol", Phlox hated the impersonal reference to 'the victim', "is in a healing trance right now." He nodded towards the healer just in case she hadn't seen him.

"I need to investigate directly with the victim." Ta'raik repeated.

Phlox sighed. Obviously, this would take longer than it should. Before he could try to reason with the woman the Vulcan healer's voice caught both their attention. "She's in a healing trance." Phlox nodded vigorously in assent.

"She can be awakened to answer questions." The detective countered.

"She is my patient, she is in a healing trance and she is not to be disturbed for another three point seven hours." The healer's tone hadn't changed yet Phlox knew he was not pleased. He leaned slightly back on his heels, thrilled to be witnessing a live Vulcan disagreement.

Ta'raik's jaw moved imperceptibly and Phlox realized from all his years with T'Pol that she was going to be obstinate about it. She really reminded him of a younger T'Pol. At least, T'Pol had been flexible enough to adapt, though she was still as stubborn as ever. He somehow doubted that the same could be said for Agent Ta'Raik.

xxx

 ** _Trip - December 8, 7:37 am_**

Trip looked once again at the comclock before giving up any thought of further sleep. He had expected T'Pol would be flying overnight to come to his parents' home, she should be landing in a few minutes, and yet she hadn't confirmed the flight with him. That was highly unusual, for a Vulcan and for her. If anything, she usually gave him a spreadsheet of the flight path and where she would be on a minute-by-minute basis. He suspected she did it partly because his reaction amused her. So her not contacting him with that information was very unusual.

He looked at his communicator again. No message. Coffee was on his mind. He needed to finish waking up, figure out where she was, and then go back to sleep.

His mother was already at the kitchen counter. Why was she up so early? "I was thinking about Elizabeth." She answered his unspoken question. Trip nodded, a lump in his throat. The pain would never quite go away.

Before he could comment or reply, he heard the call of his communicator. Of course, the device was not in his hand and he started looking feverishly around until he located it, next to the coffee pot. T'Pol's handle flashed on the screen. "Hey, honey! Are you at the shuttleport?" But it wasn't T'Pol.

His mother watched her son's back straighten, his face tense. Trip was mostly silent, uttering non-committals "I see" and "of course". Soon, he flipped the communicator shut, turned to her. His face was closed.

"Trip, what is it?" She knew that face since he was a kid, something had happened. What did that woman do now? She had never said anything, but she was not particularly fond of the Vulcan.

"I've got to go, mom. I'll be on the next shuttle out." He turned away from her, mechanically putting what he had taken out for his coffee back in the cupboards.

"Trip! What's going on?!"

"T'Pol. She's in the hospital. She's been attacked. Alien bashing." He looked at her flatly and she realized he had always known about her dislike of his wife being an alien.

She couldn't help it. Aliens had taken her daughter from her, and an alien had taken her son as well. As beautiful as T'Pol was, it was an alien beauty. She could never look at her and see anything other than an alien. If they ever had kids, her grandchildren would be little aliens, they would never be her grandkids.

"But she'll be okay?" More than anything at that moment she wanted the woman to be okay, because then she could repair the damage to the relationship. But if T'Pol died, she would lose her son as well. All of a sudden it didn't matter that she was an alien.

"She'll be released in the morning." He nodded, then looked around at the kitchen, the two of them. "I've got to go."

"I'm glad she'll be allright." His mother took her son's face in her hands. "And Trip, listen to me. I AM glad. And I AM sorry. And I DO hope she can make it here and visit with us. I will make sure she knows she is welcomed."

xxx

 ** _T'Pol - December 8, 8:16 am_**

"You called my husband?!" The victim half-raised herself from the biobed.

Agent Ta'Raik instinctively looked around for something that could serve as a defensive weapon. It was only logical that she would call the victim's mate to relate the events of the night. A part of her wondered whether the victim had become corrupted by her closeness to Humans and their open tendency to yield to their feelings and pleasure. The victim was hardly middle-aged and yet she had already spent a quarter of a century in close proximity to Human debauchery.

"One's mate is the first person to be contacted in case of emergency." Ta'Raik almost cited the volume and number but the victim's file indicated she was once V'Shar, she would know the regulation.

"This is not an emergency. I am being discharged." The victim laid back on the biobed, looking at the ceiling, her tone indicative that she was displeased.

The victim's displeasure was irrational. Her file did not indicate any estrangement from her husband. To resent his being alerted to the assault was most illogical. Ta'Raik made a memory note that the victim's state of mind reflected a possible concussion or other mental impact. Given the victim's possible mental injury, Ta'Raik felt it would be appropriate to state the obvious. "We **are** in the emergency room."

If Ta'Raik had been Human, she would have qualified the stare she received in return as 'decidedly unfriendly'. She was not Human and therefore she had no reaction to the stare but thought it would be an appropriate time to leave.

Finding the attackers would not take long. She would contact the police officers who had intervened, even the inefficient Humans filed these reports within 24 hours. Vulcan security would conduct its own investigation and she would discreetly guide the Humans to the attackers. One of whom was currently in need of orthopedic intervention. It would take a couple of days at the most.

xxx

 _ **Police Officer Glicko - December 8, 10:12 am**_

The first thing he did was set his coffee cup on a post-it note at a 90 degree angle from the computer entry pod, the handle on the left, where he could easily grab it as he struggled with writing the incident report. He and Hughes had flipped a coin on it and he'd lost. That was the second time this week. It didn't make writing the report any easier. He frowned as he carefully spelled out each word.

Soon he was looking up from the screen. "Hey, Hughes!" He called across the room. "How do you spell Xindi?"

"Incident report: On or about midnight on December 7, Officers Glicko and Hughes were dispatched to the 3100 block of N. Wood Avenue for a disturbance. Upon arrival, they made contact with the victim, T'Pol Tucker, who was suffering from a head wound, and Peter Kristofferson, who stated he had called the police. The victim confirmed that he had come to her assistance and offered her his coat and reported that four men attacked her when she told them she was a Vulcan. Officers were unable to locate the men. Victim's wounds were not life-threatening and officers drove her to the Interspecies Medical Exchange ER. Investigation is under way to locate and apprehend the attackers. Since the attackers referred to the Kasindi and the victim being an alien before the attack, the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. A general request for information has been issued."

Glicko pushed back from his desk, almost sweating. Peter Kristofferson was a person of potential interest until they confirmed he'd had nothing to do with it. They'd be calling on him. That poor guy would never see his coat back. And forget about any kind of thanks. He'd worked with Vulcans before. No feelings at all. None. Good workers but not his type. No, not his type at all. He'd much rather stick to his own kind.

xxx

 ** _Trip - December 8, 2:14 pm_**

He wished he hadn't been on vacation, he'd be there already. He'd told his mom he would come back with T'Pol, but that was only if there'd be enough time and if T'Pol wanted to. Right now, all he wanted was to be with her. Trip nodded at the ensign manning the transporter room.

Their quarters were dark, all lights out. Phlox had caught up with him, told him about the injuries, how long healing would take. He called the lights to a gentle glow. He couldn't tell if she was awake or in a healing trance.

He quietly walked to the foot of the bed, looked at her. She was sleeping on her side. He laid down next to her, careful not to jostle the bed, unsure whether it was okay to touch her. Finally, he laid a hand on her arm. The bond instantly came to life and he knew with a sense of deep relief that she wasn't condemning him for being Human, for being the same as those who attacked her. He wrapped his arms around her and just laid there, holding her.

She talked first. "There is no reason for you to be sorry."

He knew she'd say that. Her Vulcan mind could not connect what was not connected. The attackers were not him. He hadn't done anything but love her.

But they were connected. That's why he had told Archer not to worry about missing the emergency call. For what had Archer done, except have a life, love someone, be Human?

xxx


	3. Chapter 3

_A special note of thanks to reviewers. Your suggestions help improve the story._

 _Disclaimer: This is an AU story. It takes place well in the future. The law being applied may not be US law. The procedure of a civil or criminal trial may not be US civil or criminal procedure. There may be similarities, perhaps the civilization in place at the time kept the best aspects of current legal practice and added elements from other bodies of law. Perhaps things changed. But nothing that follows is meant to replicate how a trial would proceed under US law._

xxx

 _ **Peter - January**_

Peter Kristofferson crossed the threshold of his apartment, chasing the snow off his overcoat with one hand before he took it off. It had been a huge relief to receive a package with the freshly laundered coat before the weather turned really cold. After he'd given it to the Vulcan woman, he'd made do for a couple of weeks with layering and seasonal jackets. Then the parcel had arrived, addressed in Standard that looked a lot like Vulcan script, and a note definitely hand-written by an alien thanking him for his intervention and apologizing for the late return of the coat.

He'd never followed up with the hospital to find out what happened to her. They wouldn't have told him anyway, but he wondered from time to time. He chose to take the coat delivery as a sign everything was all right.

He liked to imagine it was the woman herself who wrote the note. Though it might as easily be the Vulcan security staff. They had interrogated him, just like the Human police. Not that he could tell them much, it was night and it was dark, he hadn't figured out what was going on until he was on top of them. He hadn't even realized a woman was involved at first, let alone an alien. He would be of no use identifying the attackers. And he didn't want to be more involved than he'd already been.

He hadn't told many about what happened. At first he had, and the lukewarm reception in some quarters had made him reconsider. In the end, it seemed better not to say anything. For what had he done, really? Cross the street at the right time? Anyone could have. He kept his adrenaline-infused memories to himself.

xxx

 ** _Police Officer Hughes - March_**

"So you're saying a Vulcan can tell someone who they'd hear say a couple of words, purely from their voice, even weeks later?"

Police Officer Hughes, frowned slightly. He would have shook his head but he knew better. Some of the perps in the alien-bashing case were insisting it was a case of mistaken identity. Someone should have warned them it was a losing strategy. The public defense attorney was inexperienced. The prosecutor was a pro and the Vulcans well-versed in these kinds of cases. The defendant was only delaying the inevitable.

The Vulcan expert witness raised an eyebrow at the question, staring at the lawyer in its 21st-century garb. The inefficiency of the Human legal system would always be worthy of special notice. Trial by a jury of peers indeed. He carefully set his thoughts on the matter aside, proceeding with his answer. "The Vulcan auditory system is quite different from the Human one. The Vulcan ear can identify a previously heard sound with 99.49% accuracy. That is a 30% better than visual recognition, such as that of an eyewitness."

Hughes looked down at his shoes to hide a smile. He'd been at enough of these trials that he knew the expert witness would rationally and logically make mincemeat of all the defense arguments. Mistaken identity was the go-to strategy, because everyone knew Vulcans don't see that well at night. Even if it made no sense. Even if they had the confession of other members of the posse. Facts were facts, as T'Para would say. He didn't see why they even tried. It wouldn't take more than a couple of hours and the jury would return with their decision. As usual, he would wait until the verdict. Nobody in the squad had noticed he was always the officer in attendance at these trials.

Like nobody realized he was on all cases of suspected alien bashing. If only they'd known the reason he kept his personal life strictly to himself, always with a ready excuse for office functions and other get-togethers. A couple of squad detectives had concluded he was gay, discreetly nodding knowingly each time he came up with an excuse. As if he'd bother hiding he was gay. But it confirmed that it was better to keep mum about his personal life. And T'Para. He knew some in the squad would have an issue with it. And she was much older than him, to boot. He didn't know why it worked between them, but it did, and they'd been happily mated for quite a while now.

And always the fear she would be the next victim. That was the first thing he did whenever he was dispatched, check that the alien was not T'Para. Like with that woman, the Starfleet officer. His heart had skipped a beat when they arrived at the scene. She was wearing a man's coat, giving her more heft. For a split second, he thought it was T'Para. He'd felt guilty at how relieved he was when it wasn't her.

As a form of amends, he had climbed in the back seat where the victim was, handed her a wad of tissues to wipe her face. He'd told her he was sorry. That was the best he could do, other than find the perps.

xxx

 _ **Trip - July**_

T'Pol looked at Archer and he understood the silent plea. "Trip, perhaps it's better if you were not in the room during the trial," he said.

"Your sense of outrage is overwhelming," T'Pol added.

Trip looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Of course it is. Perhaps Vulcans don't react the same way, but I'm outraged!" Trip exclaimed. "These guys are suing you when they're the ones who attacked you!"

"Only one of them is suing me." T'Pol had a sense that would not pacify her mate. It didn't. Trip glowered at her then turned to Archer. "And Starfleet can't do anything about it?"

Archer sighed. "They are. They're covering her defense but they can't make the suit disappear. We have to go through the process, even if we all know the guy's just grabbing at anything to avoid jail time. He won't win."

"Really?! He won't win?! Perhaps if she were a Human woman, but she's not. Can you vouch that nobody on the jury's going to go against her because of that?"

"Defense will weed them out."

"Yeah, and they're all choir boys and none of them has ever lied."

"The Vulcan embassy is putting its resources and expertise at our disposition. They are experienced with these kinds of cases," T'Pol interjected.

"Correction. They're experienced with alien-bashing cases. They have zero experience with accusations of excessive self-defense! They probably don't even know what that means."

"I'm sure they do," Archer cut in.

"She's Starfleet, for goodness sake!" There was no stopping Trip.

T'Pol cocked her head to the side. "I fail to see the connection."

"You're a Starfleet officer, and that's all that matters. Guilt by association. they'll say you're trained in combat and they're not. And Starfleet has deep pockets and a reputation to maintain."

"Trip!" Archer admonished. The chief engineer was close to the line. "Starfleet has no intention to yield on that one." That, or the Vulcans would be breathing down their neck, not something Starfleet necessarily wanted. "But we still have to go through the process."

"And hope that the jury sees this for what it is? That's putting a lot of faith in the process."

Archer pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think we all agree that's not as it should be but we've got no choice. Starfleet and Vulcan are defense counsel for the trial and I'll be their deputy aboard Enterprise. T'Pol, you take the time needed to talk to them or whatever else they want, that's your first priority. Trip, I think it's better if it's just T'Pol and me in the room. We'll have the proceedings piped to your quarters."

Trip looked at T'Pol then at Archer, realized the Captain would make it an order if pushed. It would be better to go along. For the time being.

xxx

 _ **T'Pol - July**_

T'Pol nodded at Archer and he opened the vidcom. Under Starfleet regulations and Federation laws, Starfleet captains could be deputized as defense counsel, an accommodation to the fact its members could not always be present for court appearances, no matter how far in advance they were scheduled. Starfleet needed its crew on its ships, not mothballed for months or years in a slow legal process. He saw Vulcan and Starfleet co-counsel sitting together at a side table. His role would be mostly ceremonial, keep things on track aboard the ship, not much more.

T'Pol started succinctly and efficiently answering the questions that the Starfleet co-counsel lobbed at her. It was no different from the first trial, when she had appeared to relate the events of the attack, a straightforward task until the prosecutor had asked how she could recognize the attacker just from his voice, leaving the jury gasping at the range of Vulcan hearing. On Vulcan, one had better be able to tell the difference between the whisper of a dried twig blowing over the sand and that of a _k'karee_ snake ready to strike. The two would be undecipherable to Human ears. She had never before considered how Trip's auditory perception differed from hers or what it would be like to be limited to the Human range.

Trip had not argued further about being in the room. Based on her bondmate's pattern of behavior, this was highly unusual. She trusted his capacity to act logically under the circumstances.

On the screen, the lawyer for her accuser was consulting the padd on his desk. The weirdly-garbed man got up from the side table and semed to approach her, though the video feed gave it a tunnel effect. She was aware that her own movements would seem unnaturally stilted through the feed. The man started asking questions, broadly covering her Starfleet training in the use of weapons and close-combat skills. He was obviously trying to establish she had experienced and dangerous fighting skills.

"Now, this _Suus Mahna_ is a type of martial art, is it not?" the lawyer was asking.

"It is, centered on self-defense."

"And it requires many years to learn?"

"It does."

"How many years of experience do you have in it?"

"I studied it for thirty-four years and three months, but I am not very advanced in the form progression."

"Thirty-four years - that sounds like black belt level."

"I am not familiar with the equivalencies."

"But I heard that with _suus mahna_ you were able to disarm and knock out a male Klingon attacker?"

"I was helping a mining colony defend itself against Klingon marauders."

Archer narrowed his eyes at the lawyer. How did he know that? Did someone on the ship talk? Or did he get the captain's logs? What else was he going to throw at T'Pol? He quickly went through what he could remember of his daily logs, hoping he hadn't written anything damning, especially in the beginning when he was upset at the Vulcans for having put a spy on his ship. And what spy that had turned out to be. He owed someone in the Vulcan embassy a huge note of thanks, perhaps even kiss their feet. He brought his attention back to the lawyer.

"And the average Klingon is 1.5 times larger and stronger than the average Human male, is that right?" the lawyer was going on.

"Klingons differ greatly in size and strength even within their own race."

"But on average, that is. And Vulcans are three times stronger than Humans. So if we figure that a male is about 30% stronger than a female across the species, then a Vulcan woman would be about twice as strong as a Human male, right?"

"Again, Vulcans differ greatly in size and strength."

"Still, on average. So if we factor in the fact Mr. JoovahnTwo is a teenager, you're more than twice as strong as he is."

"That is not accurate." "Objection, your Honor." Her answer and the co-counsel call overlapped each other. The judge frowned. "Counsel will keep to the facts."

"Certainly, your Honor," the lawyer turned back to T'Pol. "Do you recall saying that you grabbed Mr. JoovahnTwo's ankle?"

"I do."

"Let's go back to just before that, get the chronology right. You are down on the ground, and Mr. Kristofferson has called from the other side of the street and is crossing over. The fight is over."

"It was not a fight."

"That being so, you, a Starfleet officer with combat training and thirty-four years of martial arts experience, you have been bested by four teenagers. That must have been a shock, right?"

"No. The number of attackers exponentially increases the complexity of defense."

"Yes, but here you are, you can knock out a male Klingon in unarmed combat, and four kids get the better of you. That must have made you mad, right?"

"Vulcans do not get mad."

"So then, how did you feel?"

"Objection!" "Objection!" The Vulcan co-counsel was up on his feet. Starfleet co-counsel had shouted at the same time he did. Archer was glad they intervened. He swiveled to T'Pol, saw her eyes widen slightly. He unobtrusively stepped in front of her to block the video feed, gaining time.

* * *

Trip swore at the exact same time he got a sense of Vulcan upset through the bond. Whoever asked Vulcans what they felt? He swore again. He knew exactly what the lawyer was doing. A shaken T'Pol would retreat into full Vulcan mode, give overly complex answers to simple questions, come across as an aloof automaton, exactly what the lawyer wanted. Make the jury see her as alien, someone who could not have the same reaction and feelings as they did, a monster lurking underneath, while the attacker looked even more human by comparison. He was already in the corridor, hightailing it to the vidroom.

Archer heard the door open and close behind him but he didn't turn around. He was watching T'Pol like a hawk. The release of tension in the corner of her eyes told him that it was Trip who had entered the room. That was all good as far as Archer was concerned. Obviously the playbook had just gone out the window.

Trip positioned himself straight in the line of sight of T'Pol, where she couldn't help but see him as she answered questions. He slowed his breathing, focusing on the bond, trying to project his feelings to her, give her a clear read on how a Human would react to what she said.

"So," the Human lawyer went on. "Sorry, I forgot Vulcans don't have feelings."

"Your Honor!" Starfleet counsel was on his feet.

"Counsel, this is the last warning." The judge sighed. "The jury will disregard that statement."

The lawyer turned to T'Pol. "Let's go back. You are down on the ground, and Mr. Kristofferson has called from the other side of the street and is crossing over. Do you really believe at that time that you are at risk of permanent damage?"

"Based on the contextual structure of the encounter, probabilities were..." Archer frowned, waiting. Trip focused his entire energy on projecting his feelings through the bond, hoping she'd understand.

T'Pol scowled slightly, stopped, looked at Trip, though it seemed like she was looking straight back at the lawyer. "After Mr. JoovahnTwo hit me, I fell on one knee. Odds were..." T'Pol stopped herself, looked at Trip again, hesitated. "It seemed possible... the attackers were in a position to kick me." A wave of relief washed over Trip. She had understood, was modulating her response based on his reaction through the bond. She went on speaking slowly, "I thought… I expected that if I fell they would stomp on my head." Trip worked harder at pushing his personal feeling of anger down, focusing on what the average person would feel if they heard her. When this was over, he could get as angry as he wanted, at the attack, at the clownish lawyer who dared ask these questions, make her have to explain she'd been afraid for her life.

The Vulcan co-counsel looked up from the co-counsel table, frowning. The explanation was rudimentary, insufficient. He looked over at the jury, controlling the rise of his eyebrow as he realized the Human jury was listening sympathetically. It seemed they were satisfied with the imperfect recitation. He went back to his padd. He didn't understand but he didn't have an explanation.

"But that didn't happen," the lawyer pressed. "Now, what happened is you were down on one knee, correct?"

"That is correct."

"And you, you grabbed and twisted Mr. JoovahnTwo's ankle?"

"That is correct."

"Was that a _suus mahna_ move?"

"Not it was not."

"So it was not self-defense."

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"The danger had already ended. Mr. Kristofferson had called from the other side of the street for Mr. JoovahnTwo and his friends to stop. You're a Vulcan, you've had to have heard him."

"Objection!" The Vulcan co-counsel half-raised from the table.

"I'll allow it." The judge turned to T'Pol. "You can answer the question."

"The combination of…" She started, stopped, looked at Trip, and through him at the lawyer. "I... I did not hear him."

The Vulcan co-counsel scowled. The answer was entirely unsatisfactory. It would lead to more questions. She should explain how the rise in _isortimol_ created an inner background noise that made it impossible to hear anything outside of the immediate radius. If even the chronology was right. He looked up in surprise when the Human lawyer paused, looking at his padd. It seemed the response was acceptable after all.

"When you twisted Mr. JoovahnTwo's ankle, how much force did you apply?"

"I applied the force required to stop the attack."

"And Mr. JoovahnTwo is a teenage Human male, a growing boy."

"I did not know that at the time. Mr. JoovahnTwo is taller than the average Human male and has developed all the attributes associated with post-puberty."

"Let's say that Mr. JoovahnTwo is as strong as a normal Human male, you're still about twice as strong as he is, right?. And what happened is you actually grabbed his ankle twisted it to the side and upward, correct?"

"That is correct."

"So hard that all the ligaments in his ankle snapped."

T'Pol was looking at Trip. "It was necessary to stop the attack."

"By making it so that he will never walk without a cane again?"

"That was not my intent."

The lawyer scoffed. "The injury you inflicted is out of proportion with the threat you were under. Mr. JoovahnTwo was well undermatched to you. His future is permanently compromised."

"Objection!" this time both co-counsel were on their feet.

"Jury will disregard. Counsel, one more statement like this and I declare a mistrial."

T'Pol blinked, privately reflecting that Mr. JoovahnTwo's compromised future would have mainly consisted of criminal activity.

xxx


	4. Chapter 4

_Notes: I realize I need to shed some light on the structure of the story. It is really a story about long-term repercussions of a given event. The first chapter is the event. The next chapter roughly takes place the next day. The third chapter roughly takes place within the next year. The fourth chapter takes place within the next hundred years. In that hundred years, Trip dies of old age. T'Pol is still youngish in Vulcan terms and remarries. I thought of making her remarry Koss but that was pushing it._

* * *

xxx

 ** _Peter - One Year Later_**

Peter checked the address again on the white square envelope. It was the correct address, the right date. He swallowed nervously, looking at the Vulcan embassy. Perhaps he should have let someone know where he would be, perhaps he should be worried. Summoned to the embassy late after work one evening, perhaps it wasn't wise to go in. He hadn't had any of those thoughts when he had found the white envelope in his slot, amazed that these things still existed. The address had looked like it was written in Vulcan but it was clearly English characters. He imagined the mailman must have silently cursed the alien who didn't realize how difficult it was to read what they wrote. It was a different penmanship than the thank you card, though.

The invitation had been a surprise. He didn't even know the Vulcan embassy did such things as events, he always imagined they spent their days efficiently working at... Come to think of it, he'd never given any thought to what they did for a living. And now he was looking at the tall somber building, wondering if perhaps he should have enquired further. He brushed the thoughts off as mild paranoia in the face of the unknown. Not many Humans got to cross the threshold to the Vulcan embassy, that would be something else he could tell his grandkids about. If he ever found someone to date steadily.

He crossed the wide gate and entered the embassy compound. It was definitely not what he had imagined. Who would have known the tall walls guarded a large garden, replete with alien exotics. He couldn't see any greenhouse walls, but the temperature inside was hot and dry. Even though it was January outside. Or perhaps that was the point... He went through the inner garden at a restrained space, trying not to gawk too visibly, feeling that everyone could tell he was gawking, even though he tried to walk apace with the robed Vulcans that had entered before him and those that were coming behind him, alone or in small groups of two's and three's.

It was January outside and he had his overcoat on. By the time he reached the end of the garden he felt overheated. An usher came and offered to take his coat. Peter reluctantly let go of it. Last time he had handed his overcoat to a Vulcan, he had ended up freezing his pattootie off for three weeks. He followed the crowd middling around up a few steps that extended from one side of the building to the other, followed the movement into...

What struck him first was that the next space was cooler, making him feel like he had reached an oasis even though the ambient temperature was well north of what he preferred. He looked around, forgetting to feel embarrassed about gawking, how could he not. The entire building was unexpectedly alien inside, looking as if it had been hewn from rough reddish rocks, with overhangs and pitons and mountainous features. He had to keep reminding himself he was on Earth, this was the inside of the building, he was not outside on a hot and rocky planet, no matter what his eyes and nose and ears were telling him. He couldn't figure out how tall the place extended but it was a perfectly alien environment.

Soon he was milling around with the hundreds of other attendees, sipping a strange drink from tall narrow glasses. The taste was intriguing, different. He wondered whether there was any ethanol in it or anything that would have the same effect on Humans. He looked around at the crowd and realized with a jolt that he was the minority. There were only a handful of aliens like him, Humans and non-Vulcans, roaming around, some seemingly blasé about the place and others like him, obvious newbies, jaw half-agape as they craned their neck in all directions. He found himself slowly making his way to the next Human male, someone familiarly comfortable. There was safety in numbers.

He hadn't quite reached his goal when a uniformed man appeared at his elbow. "Peter Kristofferson?"

Peter startled, saw with relief the blond hair and blue eyes of another guy like him. He smiled in return, the man was pleasant, made one want to interact with him. "Yes. And new at this, as you can see!" His joke was an obvious attempt at covering his open-mouthed wonder and the fact that his best suit was easily outclassed by a hundred outfits around him. But the officer, Peter hoped he was an officer, didn't pay any attention to the veiled excuse.

"Trip. Trip Tucker. Commander Tucker, if you want to be formal about it." He extended a hand, warmly clapped Peter's. "I want to thank you. But first let me introduce my wife." With that the officer scanned the crowed, trying to locate the said wife. "Where is she?" Based on the man's affable vibe, Peter expected a short and plump mother-earth wife, someone who'd make him wish he could be invited to dinner every weekend. "Ah, there she is." The commander was looking at someone behind Peter's head. Peter turned around with a large smile.

And froze.

It was her. The woman from the street. Peter felt dumbstruck, nervously turned his hand palm up in an embarrassed offering of apology.

"Live long and prosper." The woman gave him the _taal_ , shot a look at Trip. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. He noticed she had a robe on with the same ensignia as her husband. Who noticed Peter's puzzlement, leaned over with a conspirational smile. "Commander T'Pol to you." She gravely inclined her head. "I wanted to express my gratitude for your intervention." Her face was as unmoving as a still lake and yet he knew she was smiling at him.

A noise from further down the enormous hall made him look over. It was not so much that it was a noise but that the sound was louder than the soft murmur of voices all around. Someone said something in Vulcan, loud enough that everyone could hear, and the people started streaming forward further into the huge chamber. Peter found himself swept along between the commanders, which he thought was as good a placement as any. He willingly went along, expecting them to abandon his side as soon as they reached their objective, which as far as he could tell was a low stage he could now see at the end of the hall. Once they left him to find their VIP seats he would look around again the other Human man, try to seat next to him.

The stage was of slabs of large stones of different sizes that interlocked in a gracing low staircase. Again, it looked and felt alien. He mentally measured the stones, weighed them, wondering how they had gotten the entire thing together. Then he was at the base of the staircase, the commanders still at his sides. He made a movement to disengage, walk back towards the edge of the crowd. They must have forgotten he was there. Commander Tucker grinned, shot him a side glance. "Not yet, young man. We're not quite done with you."

It was only when they reached the top of the podium that Peter realized he was somehow critical to the order of events. A couple of elderly Vulcans slowly shuffled up after him, then a younger one whose hair was all grey. He didn't know why but somehow he sensed this was the most important person in the room. Peter started aligning embassy and ambassador. Would it be that this was the ambassador? The man came to him and Peter reflexively held his hand out for a handshake, realize he had done so, and once again found himself offering up his palm as a manner of apology. He didn't know how they did it but he could have sworn the old man was smiling at him even though not a muscle on his face moved. Peter heard someone cough. He knew enough about fake coughs hiding laughter to know it was one of the Humans in attendance, possibly even the commander. But the old man didn't let that bother him. "Live long and prosper. I am Ambassador Soval." Peter nervously swallowed, nodding in return. He was hopeless with the _taal_. One of the really older men handed him some kind of receiver and Peter found he could understand Vulcan.

What happened next had the quality of a dream. There was some kind of speech, which he would have actually understood if stress was not muting all the sounds around him. When the speech ended, the woman, Commander T'Pol, walked to him and presented him with a small box. He opened it with trembling fingers, looking at the small silver medallion nested in the box. He looked at her in question. "It is an IDIC." The Vulcan woman said. "In coming to my help, you embodied the qualities that the IDIC reminds us of, of infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

Next to her, her husband was beaming proudly. The Vulcan crowd started clapping. It was an awkward applause, from people trying to follow a custom that was not theirs. Their movements were unnatural, spastic. Peter hid a smile, touched that they tried. He looked at the commander and his Vulcan wife. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations indeed. He stared at the medal nestled in its box. Somehow, he already knew he would keep it until his death.

xxx

 ** _Sixty Years Later_**

 ** _T'Pol_**

"It is time." The healer approached slowly, steeling himself against the grief permeating the room. His patient was still holding to her husband, had held him as he died, it was now time to let go.

He had helped manage the bond severance over the past few weeks, ensuring his death would not precipitate her own death, or worse, madness. She sat unmoving, unseeing. The healer never touched patients unless he was entering into a mindmeld with them but this time called for an exception. He laid a hand on her shoulder and she shivered from the sudden contact. In spite of his efforts at setting up his shields, her grief cut through the healer's abdomen like a scythe, forcing him to inhale sharply. She recoiled upon hearing his pain. "I apologize."

"There is no need for apologies. The cause is great. It is time to let go." He repeated.

She finally released her hold on the body and the Human physician quickly stepped to the biobed, the Vulcan assistants close behind. The assistants froze in place upon seeing the two tears slowly inching their way down from her open eyes. It was always an unsettling sight to see a Vulcan bawl, though the cause here was a worthy one. Losing one's bondmate was an irreparable wound and they understood the reason for the emotional upheaval, even if logic should have dictated that one did not bond with a short-lived species and expect otherwise.

The healer moved so as to shield her from the sight of her husband's body being wheeled out. "Let me help." When she didn't answer or react, he called out to her again. "T'Pol!" Her eyes looked at him but her mind was far away.

"Mother?" The healer turned towards the door, her eldest son was entering the room. He had the coloring of his father, but the healer knew for having helped with the successful gestation that his body was Vulcan, like that of his brother and sister. "I grieve with thee," the healer offered the customary comfort.

"Mother?" This time the question was addressed at him.

"It will take time, but she will be whole again." He turned back towards his patient, stooping over her, laying his aged fingers on her psi points as he sought to establish contact. "My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts..." At least her Human bondmate had died peacefully of old age. It would require a prolonged course of treatment but she would eventually recover.

xxx

 ** _Jenna_**

The baby howled her indignation at being torn from the warm environment of the womb, sucking in lungfuls of icy air that hurt her lungs, unaware of the consternation that greeted her arrival. The atmosphere in the delivery room was muted, the attending physician and nurses were talking in soft tones, subdued voices. There was no cheering. In a corner of the room, a man sat on a chair, his head between his hands. On the biobed next to him, a woman lay, the grey cast of her skin letting the world know that the spark of life had left her.

"I am so sorry." The physician said the only words that he could say. He kept going through the sequence of events in his mind and kept arriving at an impasse. Who could have predicted that a healthy female in her mid-thirties would suffer a fatal heart attach while delivering her second child? They had tried everything, but her heart would not be revived, as if she had literally given her life itself to the daughter that was blinking her blue eyes onto a brand new world.

The nurse quickly and efficiently swaddled the newborn, wondering who would give her love and care, with her mother gone and her father looking like despair itself. Hopefully there would be a grandparent or great-grandparent, people lived much longer these days, someone who knew of the randomness of life and could shelter the child.

xxx

 ** _Another Twenty Years Later_**

 ** _Jenna_**

Jenna checked from the corner of her eye that she was aligned with the other graduates. She still resented that somehow she was standing there, that she was wearing a dorky costume and participating in activities that earned her unmitigated scorn. But she had no choice. The judge had been very clear that he was giving her one last chance before jail time, and she had taken him up on his offer. Even if she thought he was wasting his time, and if he thought he was wasting it as well. She felt he was lobbing a Hail Mary pass her way, not because of who she was but because of who her grandfather had been. That was good enough as far as she was concerned. Six months in this hellhole, then she'd be out, go back to what she preferred doing. It didn't matter if she'd be threatened with jail time next. She'd find a way to beat the system, she always did.

Like now. Her thoughts went to the vaptube hidden in the rim of her underwear, nobody was the smarter for it. Others got caught, but Jenna seldom was. She looked, observed, figured out the flaws, and then took advantage of them. Until she got too full of herself, too cocksure, she never knew what it was with her, but eventually she'd overplay her hand and get nailed. Like now. She was thinking of ways to break rank and go for a quick inhale. As if that would somehow not be noticed. For once, she kept herself from blowing it. She was a few weeks from the six-month mark, she'd already did most of the time. If she got caught, the last six months would have been for nothing. Better to slide by and get back to normal life.

She clung to her distaste of the compound and everything it represented with all her strength, not even aware she did that as a diversion. If she hadn't, she would have had to consider that perhaps she was enjoying, had enjoyed her time there. But acknowledging that was too scary a proposition. She'd already felt guilty enough that somehow she was not being true to her posse when she accepted the judge's deal, that her accepting his terms was the beginning of selling her soul. But once she was out and met up with her posse, they'd see she hadn't changed, was still old Jenna, hanging out all day, and causing havoc all night. She'd put back all the skin accessories that marked her as one of the group. And this time she'd be smarter about not getting caught.

"Jenna Williams!"

The call made her jump, though she tried to act as noncommittal as always. What did the base commander want with her? She hadn't caused any trouble, not even a fight. Why would they call her out. Seeing the somber face of the commander walking to her she knew it wasn't good news. Were these monkeys going to keep her? Did they lie to her about the deal? She swallowed hard, nodded at the 'good luck', 'keep up', that floated her way from her roomies. The base commander acted as if he hadn't heard, but she knew he must have. He turned on his heel and she followed him back to the base building.

xxx

 ** _T'Pol_**

The healer bent over the cradle dug in the warm sand ofthe birthing cavern, checking that the newborn's psi points were properly activated. In response to the infant's mental stress, the mother sat up on the birthing couch, half-supported and half-restrained by her attendants. The healer quickly grabbed the baby and brought it to the mother before the synaptic system could be triggered into fighting mode and she started attacking those around her.

The father would come into the birthing cave only when the mother and child had established a proper bond, once the mother was reassured that her baby was safe. A premature introduction of the sire into the birthing room would be perceived by the mother as an existential threat to the survival of her offspring. Even if they were at the limit of child-bearing years, like this one was, and exhausted beyond the pale by the pregnancy and delivery, Vulcan mothers turned into weapons of destruction in defense of their young.

The healer had reattached his share of ears and fingers over the years and he knew better than to let a new father into the room no matter how painful the separation was. The paternal bond would not suffer from a slight delay, but there were tales of the mother killing her mate in an unreasoned defensive strike, and he knew of at least two such instances in his lifetime. Not directly. He was exceedingly careful about the reintroduction of the father, always giving strict orders that he alone could escort the baby's genitor into the birthing room.

In this case the infant had already disappeared in his mother's embrace, possibly suckling happily. She would not be letting go of her charge for the first two months. If the bonding succeeded, she would accept the presence of the father at her side and allow him to bond with the infant in turn. He could tell from her relaxed stance that the bonding had succeeded, the father would be safe. He motioned to the attendants to help prepare the mother while he went to summon him.

The man was waiting closer to the door than the healer would have liked but his graying temples told of past successful unions and deliveries, and he had resisted the urge to rush inside in a misguided attempt to bring assistance to his wife. The healer gave the customary announcement, "A new life has come into thy clan." He could tell that the man was on the verge of shoving him aside and pushing his way in, but was kept in place by years of conditioning.

"Will she-who-is-my-wife accept me?" The father was barely repressing the trembling of his hands as he answered with the ritual question.

The healer nodded gravely, his eyes sparkling his delight. He was pleased with the successful birthing, as he logically should be. "T'Pol is waiting for he-who-sired-her-child."

xxx


	5. Chapter 5

_Notes: The first chapter is the event, seen from different perspectives. The next chapter roughly takes place the next day, also different perspectives. The third chapter relates different events that roughly takes place within the next year. The fourth chapter looks at the next hundred years. In that hundred years, Trip dies of old age. T'Pol is still youngish in Vulcan terms and remarries. I thought of making her remarry Koss but that was pushing it. This final chapter brings two character lines from the first chapter back together._

 _I am re-posting the chapter as I forgot that new materials within the same 24-hour don't show the story as being updated._

* * *

 ** _Another Ten Years Later_**

 ** _Jenna_**

Jenna watched as the diminutive figure stepped out of the shuttle. The Starfleet company commander turned around, watching with all the cadets. Once the figure had stepped on land, he walked to her. Jenna watched him go. The guy was a hunk. Exactly the kind of guy she would never have imagined dating when she was growing up. Straight as an arrow, unimaginative, she thought at the time, boring. And now all she yearned for was someone like him, someone to settle with, stability. Boredom had never sounded so exciting. Plus with his blond hair and pointed ears he looked like a dream out of one of the children books Gramps had favored. Still, it was said he was all Vulcan beneath that uniform. She would have liked to check.

She side-glanced at the row of cadets standing straight next to her, allowing her chest to swell with pride. She'd never imagined she'd be one day part of Starfleet Academy, certainly never imagined graduating. It was such a far cry from where she'd been headed. She'd been a kid then, but a wild one, ready to throw it all out on her definition of fun. And she would have gone right back to her antics, except her grandfather died two weeks before her probation ended. She still shuddered when she thought of that day, standing in line with another set of graduates, except those were intent on staying on the wrong side of the law. It came back in her nightmares, the base commander coming to get her, she thought they'd found the contraband hidden in her bedposts, that she'd be going straight to the hole. Instead, he had brought her to his office, gently told her that gramps had died.

Gramps. Her life had changed that day. She'd wanted to die. Gramps who was always so patient with her, the sadness in his face every time he came to talk to the judge, get her out of some scrape or another. He had always looked at her with such love, and such sorrow. Never a mean word. He was always there at every arraignment, standing in silent support in spite of how angry and mean and awful she was. It still clemched her heart to think she hadn't been there when he'd died. And as she stood there sobbing in the base commander office, all she could think of was how sad he'd looked when she came out of the courthouse.

The base commander had let her go home, attend the funeral. Her posse was there, waiting for her. But everything had changed. All she could see was moronic teenagers without any understanding of the world. All she wanted was to get away from them, to reclaim a future that was hers, and hers alone. It was thanks to Gramps she was where she was, in a way. The guilt had propelled her clear across the finish line back onto the tracks. She guessed it could have gone the other way, grief might have pushed her over the line into a life of petty crime and loser friends. She didn't know what it was in her personality makeup that had oriented her to where she was now, but she was not sorry. Neither for the change nor for the wild years of partying before. The only thing she was sorry for was that Gramps was not there to see her graduate. And that she would never be able to show him a different her.

After the funeral she'd gone back home, the home she lived in with Gramps. He'd been mother and father and grandfather since the day she was born, her mother, his daughter, had died that day, and her father couldn't forgive her for it. A simple home, but he'd kept her safe.

She'd gone through his things, wanting to save some of them from the rapacious hands of her relatives. In the end, there were too many things, or they were too bulky. But then, in a corner of his desk, she'd found a small box, and inside that box a medallion on a chain. All that was left from him, and it never left her neck. Whenever people asked, she said it was a religious thing. That way they couldn't touch it, couldn't make her take it off. Even Starfleet. But nobody had ever debated her on it.

The company commander was back with the commencement speaker. And what speaker. One of Starfleet legends. She couldn't believe how lucky she was to be standing there at attention with the corps of cadets, her friends, her new posse. The commander was looking over the sea of cadets. "Company, attention!" The call rang loud and clear. Jenna's body went through the pose from muscle memory while her gaze stayed fixed on his face. He had blue eyes to die for. She wasn't really listening, thinking ahead of when the commencement speaker would be inspecting graduates. She was in the first row. Purely based on her performance. Her chest bombed a little more with pride. She ignored the fidgeting of the cadet next to her.

The commander was speaking. ""Cadets, we are here today to receive he attention of T'Pol of Vulcan, who honors us by her presence. She had yada yada..." Jenna stopped listening. The fidgeting next to her was drawing her attention. The cadet at her side discreetly brought her fingers to her throat. She was not a close friend, more like a respected competitor. Jenna looked at the motion of her fingers, discounted it, brought her attention back to the company commander.

He had taken his cap off as a sign of reverence and was escorting T'Pol to the field, holding her hand. Jenna stared open-mouthed, her eyes going from his pointed ear to the woman's. She thought she'd heard the word 'mother' when he was speaking but she hadn't been paying attention. She looked at the woman, quickly putting two and two together. The captain was her son. Perhaps her grandson? Jenna was in on Stafleet legends, knew that the Starfleet commander had married a Human. They'd had two or three children until Admiral Tucker passed away. The codicil said she'd married again on Vulcan and had another two or three children, unclear whether hers or stepkids.

As they neared, Jenna mentally went over her posture, her uniform, checking that everything was where it should be. And a cold hand gripped her heart. The medallion. She'd put it after she'd donned the jacket. Thought she'd tucked it inside, had completely forgotten about it. That's what the cadet next to her was trying to tell her. Jenna could have cried. Here she was, graduating, standing at attention, finally reaching her goal of a clea life, and she'd ruined it. All she could think of was the medallion out of place on her uniform, shining in the sun. There was no opportunity to turn around and put it back in, the commander and the speaker were almost on top of her. She felt herself blush to the roots of her hair. Fine. She'd look like a fool, get demerits, whatever the company commander wanted. He was strict and unemotional, there's no way he would let her get away with it. She mentally prepared an excuse, she'd claim it was a religious thing, an amulet, let them believe she'd wanted the medallion outside on top of her uniform.

Except she couldn't. Not anymore. Not now that she was a Starfleet graduate. She deflated slightly, waiting in tense expectation. The commander was on her, his mother by his side. She stopped upon seeing Jenna, looked at her piercingly. Jenna felt the heat of her cheeks. Great. She had to blush like a damn school girl, it wasn't bad enough she was not in proper uniform.

"Where did you get this medallion?" the woman was asking.

"It was my grandfather's, mam!" Jenna felt a wave of calm. All of sudden, it didn't matter. What was, was, and what was was that she had her grandfather's medallion over her uniform, not underneath it.

"Do you know what it represents?"

Jenna felt herself blush again, aware of how often she had pretended it was a religious symbol when in fact she didn't have the beginning of a clue. She suddenly realized perhaps it meant something to Vulcans, perhaps something offensive. She found herself wishing very hard she had checked what the medallion was. But it had been her grandfather's, and that was enough for her. "No, m'am, I don't." There, she said it. She didn't have a clue what it was. She saw the company commander's eyebrow lift a little. He must remember she had been claiming all along that it was a religious symbol. She wondered if they would delay her graduation for that.

The Vulcan woman nodded slowly. "When this is over, please join me in Commander Tucker's office." She turned to the company commander. "You shall attend as well, Severin."

xxx

 _ **T'Pol**_

She rarely came to Earth these days, she was busy with her consort and their joined families and she had almost turned her son down when he asked. And then she had reflected that she had not been on Earth since Trip had died but time had passed like the flow of a river and thinking of him was no longer the agony it had been. Thoughts of Trip would always be commingled with memories about Starfleet and their years aboard Enterprise. Severin had kept in the family tradition, and he looked the most like his father, how could she deny him? And she knew better than to push off her coming another ten years, many changes could take place in ten years. Including another pon farr. The birth of S'apei had been entirely unexpected, the healers had devised a theory of the impact of space time distortion on her reproductive system. Which meant there could be another child in the future, however unlikely it seemed.

She had stopped at the top of the stairs coming out of the shuttle, tasting the moist air, feeling the sun, remembering other times, other sites, the shadow of Trip's particular delight in the ocean breeze or that place he called Florida. The cadets were neatly aligned under the sun, the metal in their uniform gleaming here and there. This was another life, another time, in the past. She was doing it for Severin.

The review had been as expected, she was surprised at how young the cadets had become since her time among the stars. She was paying attention to every detail, nodding here and there, appreciative of their neat appearance, their hopes.

Then she saw it.

She knew right away what it was. Her memory never failed her. But the Human who had helped her had been a man, and this was a woman. And the man would have been very old, much older than Trip when he died. The Human lifespan meant he was dead also. She enquired how the female cadet had come into possession of it, nodded when she heard it was her grandfather's. So this was Peter Kristofferson's granddaughter.

The rest of the inspection went smoothly and efficiently, and then she was in her son's office, waiting. Severin was at his desk, taking care of some administrative matter while they waited for Cadet Jenna Williams to appear. The young woman looked flushed when she presented herself, as if she'd been running - or crying. T'Pol still didn't fully know how to differentiate the various Human blushes. She bade the woman sit down, asked for her son to join them. Then she asked the woman to remove the medallion from her neck, held it in the palm of her hand as she started the story. "This is an IDIC, a symbol of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and I am the one who gave it to your grandfather. I will now tell you its story." She paused. "It started on a December 7, the day your grandfather saved my life..."

xxx

 _ **Jenna**_

Jenna stepped outside, blinking in the sun. Blinking back tears. Her grandfather had been a hero. The medallion had turned out to be a religious symbol after all and now she was carrying it, and with it she was carrying the memory of Gramps. He would be so proud if he could see her now. She would never understand why he didn't tell her the story.

She stopped and looked back at the Starfleet building. All was as it should be. This was where she needed to be. Hopefully one day she would be a hero herself and intervene to save another. With the IDIC around her neck.

She took a step forward into her destiny.


End file.
